Phenom II's - What's the huge difference supposed to be?

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W.O.T. Stang

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 4, 2003
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363
So the rage is that the Phenom II's are going to be released in just over a week and everyone is going nuts over them. I've been looking all over the web, and maybe its just me, but I can't figure out what the hype is all about.

They are apparently going to run $250-300ish for 2.8-3.0Ghz. They are going to be based on 45nm build, so obviously this means more room for overclocking and possibly lower temps. They are also supposed to have 6mb L3 cache, which is nice.. but i dont see it being a *huge* increase in performance for running just about the same speed as a mildly overclocked 9850-9950.. aren't 9500s hitting close to 3.0 with some tweaking now? No disrespect what-so-ever meant to AMD, as I have used them exclusively since the K6-2 days.. but I just don't see a huge technological breakthough as of yet.

Outside of that, I'm not seeing the huge need to wait on a Phenom II from a Phenom I. In a way, im actually happy they are coming out, just because they will make the already exisiting Phenom I's drop in price. Maybe i'm missing something here, but are they really going to be all that outstanding over a Phenom I? Or is it too early to speculate until people can get some testing time with them?

Just something i've been thinking about in my upcoming upgrade.. lot of people saying to stay with a dual-core until the Phe II's come out.. but i honestly don't see a huge reason other then price drops. Thoughts?
 
higher overclocking than previous phenoms. the larger cache will make a bigger difference in games. Its supposed to be close or match yorkies and i7 in certain areas, particularly gaming.
 
Phenom II is looking to be within about 10-15% of Yorkfield clock-for-clock on average from the looks of it.
 
Phenom II is for someone that already has an AM2 socket motherboard that will accept the upgrade. Otherwise, no reason to even look at it. Just a guess on my part.

And this rage you mention please direct me towards it. I need a good laugh.
 
silent-circuit said:
Which is outright pathetic.
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But by no means uncompetitive when in the hands of an enthusaist. Especially if Deneb scales well with clock speed. Like Kyle said, it's going to be most appealing to those who already have AM2+ compatible motherboards.
 
It's appealing to a hell of alot more than just AMD 'upgraders'. 'The base' are comming out of the woodworks, and alot of people are interested in switching over from the Q6600. Extreme benchers are loving it, and will put competition back in that very infuential sector. Have a look around major websites around the net, there is alot of excitement. Then, go have a look at a few major open-scource websites, like Phoronix and /.. They seem to be pretty pumped about ATI releases open scource drivers for the R6xx and R7xx families, so this could turn into a huge platform win... Something AMD has been pushing for a long time.
 
three reasons, one they should be close to core two clock per clock, better in a few areas. two they are AM2 compatible a real upgrade / low budget build option for many. Three they are rumored to overclock well, hitting 4gh on air. I am waiting to see how true all this is. If they are good enough I may just bite.
 
I was happy with the chip I had, I was able to beat out my q6600, and I imagine that if I had a better Phenom II I might have given my q9550 a run for its money.

However, the comment that this would be great for all the people who own AM2 boards is kind of a moot point. I deal with a large number of 'computer geeks' and I still found it very difficult to find a person with an AM2+ board. Almost everyone went s775 over the last year or so. The people who have AM2 setups are all older pre-c2d stuff, like m2n-e or m2n32-sli boards.
 
Table, I still wanted to see some game benchmarks on that setup you have.
 
Also you have to recall that an Intel 3.0ghz quad core (Q9650) is at $550, where a Phenom II 940 3.0ghz price is estimated at $300 +/- 25. If the Phenom II can compete with the Q9650 within 7-12%, for the price it can't be beaten. I'll wait for a big site still to review the Phenom II.
 
DASHlT said:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3538771#post3538771

they got some decent Benchmarks going in that thread, The people on charge of the review also have 3.7GHZ benchies of all procs.

It's the best one on the net, and they are updating daily.

It looks like a great price/performance CPU. Yes it is not as good as i7, but not everyone can blow $700+ on a system.
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I've been struggling to get a grip on where this chip sites in terms of performance and tbh, the performance claims have been all over the map(so to speak). Here in Canada the PII will be coming in at or around the same price as an i7 920, which makes it really hard to justify unless of course someone is running M2, in which case the tables would turn dramatically I suppose.

On the upside, the i7 920 is also a very good OC'er as many people as are seeing 4+Ghz under water. For me its pretty much an open and shut case situation. Can't wait for my wife to make enough money so I can upgrade my machines :p
 
Esstee said:
I've been struggling to get a grip on where this chip sites in terms of performance and tbh, the performance claims have been all over the map(so to speak). Here in Canada the PII will be coming in at or around the same price as an i7 920, which makes it really hard to justify unless of course someone is running M2, in which case the tables would turn dramatically I suppose.

On the upside, the i7 920 is also a very good OC'er as many people as are seeing 4+Ghz under water. For me its pretty much an open and shut case situation. Can't wait for my wife to make enough money so I can upgrade my machines :p
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Very true :) but the PII isnt made to go against the i7 920. Besides not everyone can spend $700 on a mobo/ram/proc.

Some people just arent rich, specially with the Economy the way it is (specially shows if you are waiting for your wife to make more money so you can afford an i7 920).
 
dennisjai said:
Also you have to recall that an Intel 3.0ghz quad core (Q9650) is at $550, where a Phenom II 940 3.0ghz price is estimated at $300 +/- 25. If the Phenom II can compete with the Q9650 within 7-12%, for the price it can't be beaten. I'll wait for a big site still to review the Phenom II.
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That`s why Intel also have Q9550. No?
 
dennisjai said:
Also you have to recall that an Intel 3.0ghz quad core (Q9650) is at $550, where a Phenom II 940 3.0ghz price is estimated at $300 +/- 25. If the Phenom II can compete with the Q9650 within 7-12%, for the price it can't be beaten. I'll wait for a big site still to review the Phenom II.
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If the Phenom II can compete with the Q9650 within 7-12%, then it's still slightly slower than the Q9550 (2.86 GHz) which is currently priced at $319 on Newegg. So there goes your price comparison right out the window.
 
I think Dan already provided some realism in the other thread about this. You really can't do much to tweak an existing design without overhauling EVERYTHING. So to expect a HUGE difference would be unreasonable. TBH, if PII even saw a realistic 10% gain in IPC, it would truly amazing, but I think that's not going to be realistic.

An increase under 10% across the board and better headroom is probably the best we can expect (and it's not that bad). E.g. kind of what Presler was to the Prescott. It's cheap, OCs far better than the 1st iteration, but still has an inherent IPC disadvantage. We still got about a week (from tomorrow) till Jan 8th, but I'm not expecting any miracles, especially compared to the i7.
 
HenryBravo said:
If the Phenom II can compete with the Q9650 within 7-12%, then it's still slightly slower than the Q9550 (2.86 GHz) which is currently priced at $319 on Newegg. So there goes your price comparison right out the window.
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Unless Intel reduces prices to put pressure on AMD, then you are wrong.
 
HD 4800 is not the fastest GPU when it is launched but it makes people happy because it is a competitive product in term of price/performance.
 
I don't remember any rage, unless you mean literal rage that people have for AMD (especially Kyle, he wants to feast on AMD javabytes).
 
dennisjai said:
Also you have to recall that an Intel 3.0ghz quad core (Q9650) is at $550, where a Phenom II 940 3.0ghz price is estimated at $300 +/- 25. If the Phenom II can compete with the Q9650 within 7-12%, for the price it can't be beaten. I'll wait for a big site still to review the Phenom II.
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I had been wanting to do a Phenom build for a while, and was waiting for 45nm Phenom to come out since the early power consumption and overclocking results for 65nm Phenom weren't all that appealing. I really do hope the Phenom II's are more competitive and if their $300 chip is within 10% of Intel's $550 chip, then they are looking pretty good. But realistically, if the Phenom II cannot overclock to 4.0ghz -- I don't see the point. Q6600 can pretty much always do 3.0ghz to 3.2ghz and they are only $200. Which puts intel back in the value lead,Intel's $200 chip being within 10% of the performance of AMD's $300 chip. Unless AMD scales to between 3.6 to 4.0ghz, they still lose to the Q6600, which is a really old chip.

Maybe AMD pulls off a 4850/4870 type of upset with Phenom II, but all the benchmarks I've seen so far don't seem to support that happening. The AMD fanboi part of me sure hopes AMD is playing rope a dope and the actual performace increase gets parity with i7, but I doubt it will be that good. Hope so, though. ;)
 
sskk said:
That`s why Intel also have Q9550. No?
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bingo, this is why i went intel, the phenom 2 will prob be right behind my q9550, Around the same price, and around the same start ratio, meaning i started with a e5200, UD3R, 4gb ram under 260, while a 6000+, decent sb750 board, and 4gb of ram was right on the price tag, With the e5200 performing better and even against amds new 7000 series, looks like a right choice, and even with me upgrading to a Q9550 to last me until the next few years.

Phenom 2 looks decent performer, but too late imo, alot of people say its for people who want to upgrade, but intel has the same with their e5200 and quads, and from the looks of it, Q9550, beats it on overclocking if not the phenom 2 is right behind there.

Like mack, i am also a amd ''fanboy'' and do wish amd to get back into the game, but not enough for me to dump my money on em when its around the same tag and with me overclocking to the fullest, which is what intel provides, my Q9550 got to 4.0ghz and still can do more and wants more, but with the exchange of better cooling ;)
 
Mr. Bluntman said:
Phenom II is looking to be within about 10-15% of Yorkfield clock-for-clock on average from the looks of it.
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unfounded and untrue it will be very competitive how competitive next week we will know reviewers have had their pII's for over a month and these are not even the am3 pII's for once amd may have finally steped out of barcelona disaster with something that we actually want
 
silent-circuit said:
Punctuation and capitalization: It makes you look like less of an idiot.
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Well thats a little harsh? You should proabably read the sticky. No one said we have to use perfect grammer, at least its english.

Back on topic, I cant wait to see some bench numbers this next week. Just wish they were launching the AM3 socket as well. Those of us still on DDR1 may want to just jump straight to a AM3 or i7 with DDR3 to avoid delving into DDR2 that is on its way out the door. s939 4 Life! :cool:
 
silent-circuit said:
Punctuation and capitalization: It makes you look like less of an idiot.
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QFT. Besides, do the research. If you look at all the preliminary info about Phenom II all the assorted reports in the past couple of months about PhII, you will come to a relatively similar concusion - Deneb looks to be on par clock-for-clock with a Kentsfield, but slightly lagging behind Yorkfield, except in areas where Intel has traditionally dominated.

But this is only an educated guess so don't take my word for it. Wait until the 9th (?) for official numbers.
 
maxius said:
unfounded and untrue it will be very competitive how competitive next week we will know reviewers have had their pII's for over a month and these are not even the am3 pII's for once amd may have finally steped out of barcelona disaster with something that we actually want
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I hate how you type, with a passion.
 
good thing going to for AMD is that an AMD motherboard 780G is amazing for the price!
 
It would not be hard to say that numbers can be misleading. You can choke a cpu in benchmarks by simply running something like itunes and converting music. But we will see if this holds up.
 
silent-circuit said:
Punctuation and capitalization: It makes you look like less of an idiot.
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Indeed they do.

If you're going to correct English, it works best if you use it properly too.


I'm in your boat Acidex, I'm still on a single core 4200 and looking to upgrade. The i7 platform sure looks nice but not so much with the cost of the x58 boards. The Dragon looks like it should be a more attractive option and I like how AMD maintains their legacy sockets to help make upgrading smoother.
 
This will be great.

Very fast proc for a good price on hardware that is cheap and can also be purchased used.

Looks to be a good option for a secondary system.
 
Kendrak said:
This will be great.

Very fast proc for a good price on hardware that is cheap and can also be purchased used.

Looks to be a good option for a secondary system.
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Agreed. Users who have made an investment in DDR2 and are looking to upgrade to a Quad from a X2 will really like this processor. This will be a solid alternative to an expensive i7 setup until DDR3/X58 motherboard prices come down. Even though this may not be a direct competitor to Intels i7, this is a step in the right direction for AMD. You guys werent realistically thinking that PII would outdo a i7 right? :p

Thanks for the benchmark link guys. I hadnt seen those yet.
 
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